“It’s very difficult to get into a hypothetical that’s not there.”
Call it a chink in the armor of the Republican shining knight of the Massachusetts Miracle, but the immensely popular Senator Scott Brown is slipping in the polls. He’s still more popular than any other Massachusetts politician, but up until now he’s been an empty vessel that moderate and independent voters could fill with their own beliefs. In politics, however, an empty vessel eventually starts to fil up with a record of achievement. Most voters are unfamiliar with Brown’s filibuster of a bill he co-sponsored or the dearth of his unscripted meetings with the public or his running away from a guy in a wheelchair at an Amherst park.
The Globe’s poll won’t shatter Brown’s candidacy, but it marks the first time a mainstream, “unbiased” news source has discussed Brown’s electability:
Brown will need to capture the votes of independents and moderate Democrats who helped propel him to victory in the special election in January 2010. The poll suggested he continues to have relatively strong support among self-identified independents, with 44 percent viewing him favorably and 19 percent viewing him unfavorably. But a large portion, 37 percent, were either neutral or did not offer any opinion.
If that 37 percent are registered voters, Brown has reason to worry. That’s a lot of people that don’t know or don’t care about the guy. Take 15% of those folks, if they vote, add them to a solid Democratic turnout of 36% or more, and the Democratic nominee is in spitting distance of election. And favorability still has to be transformed into votes. It’s one thing to like the guy, but voters have to like him more than his opponent and take agree to cast their vote for an unpopular Republican Party.
None of the Democratic contenders are well-known at this point. If 37 percent are neutral or opinionless when it comes to Brown, the best known of the Democratic field, Elizabeth Warren is even more unknown.
Warren, the choice of many Washington Democrats and some state party insiders to face off against Brown, remains unknown to large swaths of the voting public, according to the poll. While those who know of her tend to like her – 23 percent rate her favorably, 12 percent unfavorably – 60 percent said they don’t know who she is or have no opinion of her.
Unlike Brown, Warren actually has a record–albeit, not as a legislator–that she can run on. And her advisors are less likely to engage in sock puppet Twitterism.
Lots of his supporters were upset with his vote on DADT and other moves to the Massachusetts middle. I doubt any supporters are upset with anything else.
You think the labor households that voted for Brown aren’t the teensiest bit concerned about his repeated job-killing votes, including voting against unemployment extensions and against a small business bill that he himself co-sponsored? I do.
As many have noted, the Brown vote roughly equaled the McCain 2008 vote. Those people are not going to swing D. We need to get excited about our nominee, once we have one, to win the seat.
Obama got more than 60% of the vote. McCain got less than 40%. Even if all the Brown votes remained, even if the 2012 election had 90% of the 2008 turnout, the Democrat would win – getting 90% of the Obama vote.
The BIG news in this poll is the decline in Brown’s popularity. He is still popular, but as noted, he is below 50% – and it is significant that in a year he has fallen as much as he has.
Not to mention, the BG has to use a new metric to claim he is the most popular MA official as Kerry is at 52% and Brown at 48%. That fewer people are ambivalent about Kerry does not make him less popular. (As someone who worked as a statistician, the right question to ask to determine who is more popular is to ask exactly that. (This was more obvious when both were above 50%.) The only reason to bring this up is that it links with the “everybody likes him, he’s a regular guy” stuff. If he loses the perception of being popular, he will likely lose those with him because he is winning.
The comments in the diary on the match up are interesting. I would guess than on the issues where Brown and the Democrat will differ, that more independents will prefer the Democratic position. If so, given the number not super committed to Brown, the Democrat might get a much larger % of the independents than indicated – if he/she runs a good campaign.
His popularity (this site not withstanding) may be too much for any candidate. Very surprising that none of the established politicians are challenging him… why is that?
or it may not. But it’s not at all surprising that “none of the established politicians” are challenging him. Deval said over and over again that he wasn’t going to cut his term short to run, even though a lot of media and other types found it hard to believe him. And any congressperson would have to give up his or her seat to run, so that’s why Cap, Markey, etc. are staying put. As I’ve said many times, Brown is certainly beatable, but it will not be easy, and it’s not a sure thing.
quite a few voted against their leadership’s recommendation and supported Brown. I doubt that trend will continue this time around in light of Brown’s very poor record on issues that matter to the middle class.
shallow. Except for us, most people don’t really think about Brown, or Kerry for that matter. They have the opinion they formed when he was elected, and they won’t change it until we get much closer to the election.
Labor is circling the wagons. We’ve seen the direction things are going in–even the Reagan Democrats in unions–and we don’t like it.
Where are the details of the poll? I couldn’t find it in the Globe article.
poll. I tried to find it because it wasn’t clear who was polled. Nothing said about registered or likely voters. The Globe is pretty crappy about linking to stuff.
I’ve noticed they often receive polls before they are released to the common people. Maybe they treat their own poll the same way.
Here’s the link to the UNH Survey Center, which does the Globe’s polling.
Hopefully, UNH will eventually post.
There was a poll some time ago that showed a hypothetical matchup of Brown v. Joe Kennedy. Kennedy lost, but by 45-40. Brown trounced the other candidates, who at that time did not include E. Warren. Martha Coakley even came up good against Brown in a recent hypothetical match-up, the numbers elude me at the moment.
The point is that Brown’s numbers are soft. It doesn’t make him a dead man walking, but it suggest a public who is going on who they know and not so much on the issues. Partly that is because it is too early for that. The campaign has only begun in earnest a few months ago on the Dems’ side. Win, lose or draw (read: recount), expect a tight race. Brown has no laurels to rest on.
a thumbs down?!
Not reality based thumb-usage?